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Huron Expositor, 2001-01-03, Page 22 -TME HURON EXPO$1TOR, January 3, 2001 1?.4:: )91200.110 E::.°4.4 - BABIES ON PARADE k5 BABIES BORN IN 2000! Susan Hundertmark photo local portrait artist Cyril Leeper sits with miniature Schnauser Sally, a recent subject, in his lap. Chance to paint portrait of Queen was postponed From Page t It's considered very impolite to approach the Royal family," he says. "I was so disappointed. I could still be called at any moment so I'm being patient and biding my time," he says.• But, painting Prince Andrew in 1995 was an experience he'll never forget. He was met at the gates of Buckingham Palace by two bobbies (British police officers) .and two army officials. When the gates opened up, the crowd; which had come to watch the changing of the guards, surged forward to enter the palace but were held back so that Leeper and his briefcase could enter. "It was a real privilege to enter the palace since no public is ever allowed there," he says. However, because he swore an oath never to reveal what happened during the sittings for the portrait, Leeper can't tell anything more about Prince Andrew. But, at the unveiling of the prince's portrait in Royal Albert Hall, Leeper got a view of some of the Royal family sitting across from him in an opera box. "The Queen Mother, (British Prime Minister) John Major, Princess Diana, the Queen and Prince Phillip were all sitting in the box together and Di was giggling about something to the Queen Mother. They were all like statues but Di - she was the only human of the bunch," he says. Before Princess Di was killed in a car crash, Leeper was hopeful he would be N able to paint her portrait after her staff responded to a letter he had written to her asking if she'd seen the portrait he'd done of her brother-in-law Prince Andrew and if she'd like to have a portrait done herself. "I got a letter back saying she'd be very interested and that my work was excellent. But, then she died," he says sadly. While Leeper says painting royalty is the highest pinnacle a portrait artist can aspire to, he says the true masters didn't just paint royalty but were sponsored by them. "In the 17th Century, King Charles the Fifth sponsored Ruebens and Van Dyk and King Ferdinand of Spain sponsored Deaco Valsquez, the Rembrandt of Spain. By taking the burden of mortgage payments and debt off their minds, royalty could be true patrons of the arts." "It would be nice to go back in a time machine. Today's distractions of the world make it very hard to become a master," he says. Leeper says he also longs to return to the time when art was a skill, instead of an attitude, as he says it is now. Trained in Rome's Academie di Belle Arte for four years and a year at Madrid's Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes before a six- year apprenticeship with Toronto artist Kenneth Forbes, Leeper says no school in Canada provides the "proper" classical training for a portrait artist. "There is so much modern abstract stuff in Canada. At places like the Ontario College of Art and the Banff School of Fine Arts, you do what you want. They don't teach composition and that's very upsetting to me," he says. Leeper is considering starting his own school bringing European artistictraining into Canada. "I don't think Europeans clue into abstract art and sculpture the way New Yorkers do - and they're the ones Canadians are influenced by. I think Europeans just laugh at it. There's a real conflict between European and U.S. training," he says. While Leeper left to be trained in Rome when he was 19, he had already been receiving training during art classes at Toronto's Grange by Group of Seven artists Lawren Harris and J.E. MacDonald. "My parents told me I had to study in Europe. I was plunked down from a farm (outside Barrie where he grew up) to the city of Rome and I was not happy about it at first. But, I received incredible teaching. They live and breath art over. there. There isn't a corner of a simple building that isn't art. Everywhere you go there are plaques saying, 'By Michaelangelo,"' he says. Taylor Michelle McClin16 20� Born: May Parents: Rob & 1ennifer z Hudson Christopher Weir Smith Born: September 18,2000 Parents: Chris & Shelly Mark Andrew Metzger 2 Born: February 26, 2000. Parents. Craig & Kelly Travis Samuel Sloan Born: November 7, 2000 Parents: Rob & Ste' dra Quinn Nicholas Ross Driscoll Born: lune 25,, 2000 Parents. Ben & Crys Mattie Caroline McGrego Bono March 19, 2000 0e Parents: urea & Susan HUndottniottc photo Holiday ham From left, Keith McMillan, of Acre T Farms, presents a donation of 950 pounds of food by Acre T and its 40 employees to area foodbanks, including Moja Dodds, chair of the Seaforth food bank, Bob Raper, of .North Huron Community Food Share in Wingham and Christine and Ed Richard, of the Clinton and Goderkh food banks. Jenna Barbara Lee Marten Born: February 19, 2000 Parents: Pete & Tammy 0.4 1(.st:111,'\